Monday, February 15, 2010

Valentines Day, Nimrod, Purim, and a crap-load of nonsense

[Pic- Artists rendition of ancient Lupercalia.]

I wanted to write a bit of a follow-up post regarding what I wrote about Valentines Day two years ago. I know I'm a bit late, and not that it's a topic that fascinates me to no end, but I was reading today of an unlikely connection between Valentines Day and Nimrod. As it happens, I first came upon this information on Wikipedia, and when I returned to the page a few minutes later, lo and behold that information was gone (a phenomenon which, if having occurred in a paper encyclopedia, might be representative of an over-indulgence in psychedelic activities on the part of the reader and not molestation to the tome). I did happen to find similar bits of information on fundamentalist Christian sites though, which gave me the impression that it was them who were probably at fault for tampering with Wikipedia in the first place, and not the moderators for having removed it.

Nonetheless, I'd like to give a basic summary of what they were getting at, backwards (my mind works better backwards, as those who are already aquainted with me already know). Though I admit this information is quite fluffy, but I can't possibly research it all:

We have many traditions regarding Nimrod, but we fail to remember that most of them are Midrashic in origin and represent very little about the historical Nimrod. As it happens though, Nimrod is not much of a historical character to start with. In the bible he is called a "great hunter". He is also seen as being founder of Akkad (the early Babylonian Empire) and builder of the tower of Babylon. Whether or not he actually existed, he was accepted into the Near Eastern pantheon as Pan Baul, or Baal in Canaanite, Pan in Greek and Lupercus in Latin, all of whom are the god of flocks, mountain wilds and hunting. Thus the deified Nimrod is synonymous with Lupercus, for whom the entire Lupercalia (fertility festival) was celebrated. The name Valentine (synonymous with the English word Valiant) was also attributed to Lupercus (which basically means "wolf man"), since tradition has it that he was a great hunter of wolves, and that he took refuge in the very cave in the Apenine mountains upon which Rome was founded. Yet supposedly Nimrod was also associated with Saturn, which is a Latinized version of the name of the Babylonian G-d "Ishtar", which has to do with the word "seter", or "hidden", since he once fled his pursuers into a cave. Which cave you ask? Why, the very same cave we were just discussing, the Founding Cave (hence the ancient name of Rome being Saturnia). Thus Lupercus, Saturn, Baal and Nimrod are all the same man, and Lupercalia, if it wasn't Pagan enough already, is also a celebration of Nimrod, builder of the tower of Babel and defyer of the L-rd G-d.

The name of this very month, Adar, is a Babylonian G-d of strength; the same type of idea the Nimrod-based G-ds evoked. Yet the protagonist of the story of the book of Esther, ...Esther, was named after Ishtar. But her bearing that unholy name was a manifestation of her hiding, as the name also suggests, the presence of G-d in her affairs, so that she would be enabled to attain a position of influence, from which she could serve as a vehicle of G-d's Will to save His nation.

Valentines Day was celebrated on February 14th by the way, because Nimrod/Baal was supposedly born on the solstice, and according to the Law of Moses a woman is to be purified 40 days after the birth of a son, hence the 14-15th of February was the celebration. In fact this very month was named after the februum (purification) performed at the Lupercalia). And of course the early Christian emperors and Popes wanted to abolish the Lupercalia, but couldn't, so it was was Baptized as is, like all the other Christianized Paganisms.

So essentially, not only is Valentines Day a glorification of the archenemy of the founder of our religion, it's also glorifying the founding of the capital city of our greatest enemies (Rome), and is representative of an epic struggle between ethical monotheists and pagan heathens, which this month and this upcoming (Jewish) holiday are very indicative of. ...like I said, most of what I'm saying here is extremely misleading, but it's still worth pondering...

Yeah, I was just indulging a bit in normative English terminology (which is based on Christanity to a large extent).

The truth is the English language has a lot of things we would consider to be wrong. For example even tomorrow, "Wednesday" means "the day of Wōden", who's an Anglo-Saxon god, comperable to the Zeus-Jupiter god, who's supposed to be the head of all the gods. So just saying the name of the day in English (or some days in the currupt tounge of the European Jews as well) is aleady a חשש of "שם אלוהים אחרים לא יזכר על פיך". These Germanic languages are kind of incompatible with Judaism...

You read that crap man? I actually read most of it myself (it was very readable no? : )). Yeah, so the same "issur deoraita" of saying "Jesus the Annointed" in any language is the same as saying Wednesday and Thursday (which is why "baalei hanefesh" say "yom chamishi" (Arabic has numbered days as well), or "yom chamishi l'shabbat").

על המחבר

I'm a Talmudist who has emerged from the Beit Midrash into the world with a vision that filters my reality through a Theological prism, though on the other hand I feel our religion has been corrupted by adding too much to it. I therefore attempt to reevaluate life and Judaism using thinkers in the spirit of Rational Judaism as my guide, while sometimes digressing about my station in life.
...I also talk about shidduchim sometimes!